Semper Fi Bowl is back. Recruiting must be hurting....

via Marine Corps Times.

Marine Corps officials will reinstate funding for the Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl, a high-profile recruiting event that brings together dozens of high school football players from across the country each year. Earlier, the Corps had announced the program would be cut due to budgetary constraints.
Marine Corps Recruiting Command received additional mid-year funding from higher headquarters, said Jim Edwards, a Recruiting Command spokesman. That will allow the command to execute the next bowl game in January 2015, he said.
Maj. Gen. Mark Brilakis, commanding general of MCRC, told Marine Corps Times in the fall that the command was weighing the benefits of the bowl as officials looked for ways to work through fiscal constraints caused by across-the-board budgetary spending cuts. But about five months after they decided to put the program on hold, a funding change has brought it back.
“The commandant has decided that this is one of those premiere events that he would like us to continue and provided the resources necessary to do it,” Brilakis said, according to a Marine Corps news release.

This is more telling than the USMC wants to admit.

I knew it was coming.  Hell I've been hoping that this was coming.

The Marine Corps and this Administration has made moves that have separated the Marine Corps from its audience.

Sorry but time for some real talk.  Gays in the military.  Women in combat.  A lying sack of shit in the Commandant's chair.

The Marine Corps has lived and prospered off the fact that the Marine Corps is a family tradition.  A southern family tradition.  Now?  Its embracing ideals and lifestyles that are in direct conflict with the belief systems of retirees, vets and former service members.  Recruiters might talk shit about making mission but the reality is a bit more stark.  They get recruits because those recruits are beating down the door to get in the Marines.  They've had to sort the substandard from those that are worthy.

Now?

People like me are telling young men to NOT join.  Telling young men that the threat to their future is too great in a Marine Corps that's lost its way.

Yeah.  Mr. Amos.  You might bring back the Semper Fi bowl but it won't solve your problem.  You've alienated those you need to support you.  Fix that problem and you'll fix your recruiting crunch.